PSP shows portable movies have potential

One of the big questions in Silicon Valley and Hollywood these days is: Do people want portable video? The Watchman, a portable TV from Sony, never achieved widespread popular cult status. The "usage pattern" as they say also differs from portable music. You can't walk around and use the device without sauntering into a telephone pole.

Yet, some early trials with TV on cell phones in South Korea, where people commute by train, show promise. (Because the early versions delivered phone on cellular networks, watching a soccer match could run $ but now it's on regular TV transmission channels).

The Sony PSP, the portable game player, plays movies on the Universal Media Disc and Martin Kuhn, who runs strategic technology partnerships at Sony, mentioned that sales of movies for the PSP are a little better than expected. It's early in the experiment, but, according to some public reports, Sony has sold 100,000 prerecorded movies for it.

But not all newfangled video delivery services are doing great. MovieLink hasn't done as well as expected.